Community-Based Learning Commons^™

The Effect Of An Elephant Conservation Education Program On The Knowledge Base Of Children In Thailand, Angela Larios

Theses and Dissertations

Habitat fragmentation and human-elephant conflict (HEC) are two factors that have caused harm to both Asian elephants and humans in Thailand. Think Elephants International (TEI) is a non-profit organization whose goal is to educate children on these issues to encourage more interest in and knowledge about elephant conservation in the youth of Thailand. TEI has developed a systematic education initiative and established a method for assessing the program’s efficacy using a pre- and post-survey. The current study analyzes student responses from one open-ended question from this survey collected both before and after the students participated in the TEI program. This …

A Queens Community Teacher Storytelling Project: A Qualitative Research Study Of Five Local Afro-Caribbean And Latina Public School Teachers And Community Teachers In New York City, José Alfredo Menjivar Ortéz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation thesis examines the lived experiences, life stories, and storytelling of five Afro-Caribbean and Latina people, who are all local from the borough of Queens, alumni of New York City’s public schools, and since then, became their local public school teachers, classroom practitioners, and local community teachers. We refer to this specific and unique population of teachers as alumni-community teachers and to these and other similar stories as teacher life stories.

This qualitative research and study were conducted through a series of writing workshops and semi-structured interviews. The study’s main examination is preoccupied to understand how local teachers make …

Safety And Belonging In Immigrant-Serving Districts: Domains Of Educator Practice In A Charged Political Landscape, Rebecca Lowenhaupt, Dafney Blanca Dabach, Ariana Mangual Figueroa

Publications and Research

Drawing from a context of reception framework, this article asks the following questions: How do educators describe issues of safety and belonging in the context of a charged immigration policy climate? What practices have educators developed to support immigrant-origin youth? And, what are the relationships between educators’ perceptions of safety and belonging and educator practices? We analyze educators’ survey responses administered across six school districts in different contexts across the United States, including the Northeast, Midwest, South, and West. We synthesize four domains of educator practice: signaling affirmation, building shared knowledge and capacity, finding and mobilizing resources, and creating space …

Cldv 100 Introduction To Multicultural Studies In The 21st Century, Oluremi "Remi" Alapo

Open Educational Resources

A study of what "culture" is; how we see it based on several factors, how it influences the choices and decision we make; how to deal positively with conflicts that inevitably arise in working /living situations with people of diverse cultures. This is a course structured to raise multicultural awareness and fortify students' social skills in dealing with cultural differences. It includes ethnographic study of cultural groups in the U.S.A and responses to shared values, observations or experiences based on student's ancestry, heritage, travels. Students will learn about culture "do and donts" around the world and provide the class with …

Refugee Higher Education And Participatory Action Research Methods: Lessons Learned From The Field, Hadas Yanay

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Refugee access to higher education is devastatingly low. Recognizing the complex barriers facing refugee learners, global educational initiatives are innovating flexible learning models which promote blended online and in-person learning modalities. This article describes the implementation of a five month, online-based internship pilot offered to 21 refugee participants in qualitative and quantitative research methods, through a participatory action research (PAR) framework in five different countries -- Malawi, Kenya, South Africa, Rwanda, and Lebanon. The internship is part of the Global Education Movement (GEM), which brings refugees accredited online college degree and career development opportunities. Through direct engagement, observation of the …

Spirits In The Dark: Black Community Education And The Light It Bears, Sydoni A. Ellwood

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Spirits in the Dark” is a digital space dedicated to the efforts of Black community education. It memorializes the commitment and strategies of spirits, light bearers like Mary McLeod Bethune and Huey Newton – people who devoted their lives to the fortification of their communities via education. This project also presents a variety of answers to one specific question: What lessons can school leaders and educators incorporate from community-controlled education programs to make learning spaces affirming and engaging for Black students? In totality, the digital space contributes to conversations in urban education and sociology, specifically the ones being held around …

“I’M Real I Thought I Told Ya”: Developing Critical Media Literacy Through U.S. Latinx Digital Media Representations, Solange T. Castellar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores how audiences engage with U.S. Latinx media representations through the practice of critical media literacy. I interrogate how media consumers construct critical media literacy through interacting with U.S. Latinx figures on digital media platforms, particularly on the social-media app, Twitter, and the user-generated video content platform, YouTube. Throughout this thesis, I argue that users on these platforms who engage with U.S. Latinx pop culture figures, like Jennifer Lopez and Belcalis Almanzar (Cardi B), read, digest, and comprehend a variety of multimedia images, texts, or videos, and that this engagement becomes an accessible form of critical media literacy, …

Agentive Personhood: Finding Yourself Through Serving Others, Sasha M. Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

At the core of this study, at the core the transformative experiences that will be described, is agency and what can occur when it is at the forefront of development and learning. I discuss educational spaces that give young learners the opportunity to recognize their ability to shift their perception of themselves and the world and lead to social change. I address this topic through the lens of my own experiences and the experiences of my peers. This study is a reflection on my experiences of participating in a social justice program. I hold a mirror to myself and contemplate …

Rezoning, Real Estate, And The Dynamics Of Displacement In Inwood, Damaly Gonzalez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis asks how New York City’s rezoning process combine with the dynamics of real-estate sales to create displacement pressures for low-income communities of color. A case study of the recent rezoning of Inwood, a neighborhood in upper Manhattan, in August 2018, will help to illustrate these dynamics. Through an analysis of building sales and extreme rent inflation embedded in a historical and contemporary analysis of zoning and the influence of real-estate developers and owners on these processes, this thesis paints a dire picture of the risks faced by the mostly-Dominican-American renters in Inwood. The principal contribution of the …

Reimagining The Flute Masterclass: Case Studies Exploring Artistry, Authority, And Embodiment, Sarah Carrier

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This work explores the flute masterclass as an aesthetic, ritualized, and historically reimagined cultural practice. Based on fieldwork that took place between 2017 and 2019 in the United States, in Italy, and on the social media platforms Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, I argue that the masterclass—an extension of the master/apprentice system that dominates learning in the classical music tradition—is characterized by embodied qualities of artistry and authority. These qualities are not inherent, but are perceived through subjective, social, familied, and affective bodies.

Chapter One outlines the main themes and the research design. Chapter Two is a case study that analyzes …

Resisting Industrial Food Systems On The Web: How Non-Profit Organizations Use Digital Technology For Sustainability Education, Aleksandr Segal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the link between how community-based organizations use digital tools with the fundamentally resistance-based philosophy that these organizations have at the core of their mission. It aims to uncover how non-profit organizations (NPOs) that work in community development through food and agriculture use digital tools, and how their digital communication strategies relate to issues of resistance to neoliberalism and industrialization in the food and agriculture sectors.

Using a foundation of existing literature on food and agriculture, climate change and waste management, critical theory, and technology in pedagogy, this thesis will contextualize how non-profits resist neoliberal regimes of de-traditionalization …

Spa 2201hs Spanish For Heritage Speakers (Syllabus_Fall 2019), David Sánchez-Jiménez

Open Educational Resources

SPA 2201HS Spanish for Heritage Speakers is an intermediate course intended for students who were immersed in or exposed to the language while growing up, but who have received little or no formal instruction in Spanish. Strengthens students’ competence in the oral and written standard varieties of Spanish by building on their previous knowledge to expand their vocabulary, strengthen their command of grammar, and achieve more confidence and fluency in speaking and writing while learning about the diversity of the Hispanic cultures. The skills acquired in this course will help reinforce students’ bilingual abilities and cultural competence.

The Equal Right To Sing: The American Zeitgeist And Its Implications For Music Education, Youngeun Kim

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

According to music educators and proponents of arts education, music education in U.S. public schools seems to be in jeopardy. This thesis brings attention to several issues in current music education. It is a case study of music education in New York City public elementary schools. First, it shows that music education is not equally distributed to all students in the public-school system and is especially unequal among elementary schools. Next, it investigates possible causes for this inequality, from the current system’s limitations to more fundamental causes including the cultural perception of music among the U.S. public. The consequences of …

Referencing Audre Lorde, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz

Publications and Research

This chapter is close a reading and textual analysis of canonical texts, speeches, and archived audio recordings of Audre Lorde. It embraces Lorde’s many identities, including her identity as a librarian who chose to depart from the library as a means of survival. The author urges reference librarians to study Lorde’s example and learn from Lorde’s choice to act in a space where silence can be transformed into language and action. Acknowledgment of the limitations and opportunities that Lorde teaches us in reference service and institutional structures, may allow for librarians to move toward a realm of justice.

Housing And Community Development, Yana Kucheva

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Walking As Ontological Shifter: Thoughts In The Key Of Life, Bibi (Silvina) Calderaro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

With walking as ontological shifter I pursue an alternative to the dominant modernist episteme that offers either/or onto-epistemologies of opposition and their reifying engagements. I propose this type of walking is an intentional turning towards a set of radical positions that, as integrative aesthetic and therapeutic practice, brings multiplicity and synchronicity to experience and being in an expanded sociality. This practice facilitates the conditions of possibility for recurring points of contact between the interiority perceived as ‘body’ and the exteriority perceived as ‘world.’ While making evident the self’s at once incoherence with it-self, it opens to a space beyond the …

Embodying Rhythm Nation: Multimodal Hip Hop Dance As A Site For Adolescent Social-Emotional And Political Development, Lauren M. Roygardner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This exploratory study employed qualitative methodology, specifically values analysis, to learn more about how being involved within Hip hop dance communities positively relates to adolescent development. Adolescence was defined herein as ages 13-23. The study investigated Hip hop dance communities in terms of cultural expertise (i.e. novice, intermediate and advanced/expert) to look specifically at dance narratives (i.e. peak experience narratives and “I dance because” essays) and hip hop dance performances. The primary purpose of this dissertation was to (1) explore how adolescents use multimodal Hip hop dance discourse for social-emotional development and critical consciousness, and to (2) understand how values …

Opening Education, Linking To Communities: The #Inq13 Collective’S Participatory Open Online Course (Pooc) In East Harlem, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz, Polly Thistlethwaite, Jessie Daniels

Publications and Research

Drawing on experiences with the JustPublics@365 participatory open online course, or POOC, this chapter discusses the politics and possibilities of open access pedagogy and the broader engagement with communities that academics might achieve. We situated the POOC in New York City’s East Harlem neighborhood and to use the course to form an academic-community partnership. Rather than replicate the broadcast model employed by many MOOCs, in which an instructor delivers education to a broad audience of otherwise disconnected students, the POOC sought to engage participants through open site-based and online experiences, including lectures and class readings posted openly for any member …

Different Names For Bullying, Marco Poggio

Capstones

“There's all different forms of bullying,” says Steven Gray, a Lakota rancher and former law enforcement officer living in South Dakota. In this look into Gray’s life, we learn about two instances of bullying: the psychological and physical harassment that pushed his son, Tanner Thomas Gray, to commit suicide at age 12; And the controversial construction of an oil pipeline in an ancient tribal land that belongs to the Lakota people by rights of a treaty signed in 1851, which Gray sees as an institutional abuse infringing on the sovereignty of his people. Gray is involved in the movement that …

From Toxic Tours To Growing The Grassroots: Tensions In Critical Pedagogy And Community Development, Celina Su, Isabelle Jagninski

Publications and Research

Structural inequalities in American public education are inextricably tied to deep-seated patterns of racial and economic segregation. Children in poor neighborhoods are less likely to have the household resources, neighborhood institutions, or school amenities necessary for a good, challenging education. In response, a growing number of organizations have launched initiatives to simultaneously revitalize neighborhoods and improve public education, emphasizing youth participation as an essential component in their efforts. We draw upon ethnographic data from two such organizations to examine their practice of place-based critical pedagogy in community development. We focus on how they engage marginalized, “hard-to-reach” youth via (1) experiential …

Study Guide For United In Anger: A History Of Act Up, Matt Brim

Open Educational Resources

The United in Anger Study Guide facilitates classroom and activist engagement with Jim Hubbard’s 2012 documentary, United in Anger: A History of ACT UP. The Study Guide contains discussion sections, projects and exercises, and resources for further research about the activism of the New York chapter of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). The Study Guide is a free, interactive, multimedia resource for understanding the legacy of ACT UP, the film’s role in preserving that legacy, and its meaning for viewers' lives.

Lgbtq Womyn Of Color Conference — Crossroads And Crosswinds Connecting Across Race And Space, Arianne Benford

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

When I first arrived at the Second Annual LGBTQ Womyn of Color Conference, I was nearly knocked over by the embrace the conference's coexecutive director, Adrienne Williams. We had only spoken on the phone a few times, yet the last time I can remember being so warmly received was during one of my infrequent trips home to see my mother. While I was sure that in that moment she had a long list of other things to do, she still made time to ensure that I was being treated well. Adrienne's hug was not a singular experience, but more of …

The New Face Of Queer, The New Face Of Cuny, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

The seventh Queer CUNY conference for LGBT students, staff, faculty, and alumni, took place at Brooklyn College on April 1, 2006. Students from all over the CUNY system of schools gathered to discuss, debate, and deconstruct what LGBT community is and what it might be.

Not In Our Name: Reclaiming The Democratic Vision Of Small School Reform, Michelle Fine

Publications and Research

Maybe we weren’t clear. The small schools movement was never simply about size. When committed educators and community activists in New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, Oakland, Boston, and Cincinnati launched the movement, they were desperately seeking alternatives to the failures of big city high schools. They fashioned a vibrant, gutsy social movement for creating democratic, warm, and intellectually provocative schools, particularly for poor and working-class youth of color.

Changing Of The Guard, Alisa Solomon

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

After four gratifying years, i have decided to step down as the executive director of CLAGS to focus again on research, writing, and teaching. As much as I have enjoyed the position and as proud as I am of all we have accomplished, the truth is, I don't have the temperament of an administrator. I'm yearning to teach graduate students again, to be more available to my undergraduate students at Baruch, and eager to jump back into the scholarship that I've had to put aside since 1999.

Seminars In The City Update, Paisley Currah

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Each semester, the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies hosts a Seminar in the City, a series of monthly discussion meetings where nonacademic readers read major works in lesbian/gay/ bisexual/transgender and queer studies. This fall, Seminars in the City focused on the theme of transgender politics, reading texts by Kate Bornstein, Leslie Feinberg, and Riki Anne Wilchins.